Guest Blog: The Birth of Baby Number One- By Hannah Dohoney

1st baby (7 days early planned for home birth - didn't have one)


Mum and Dad had been on holiday so as tradition (pre children) we went to meet them in the local old mans pub. (don't worry i was on cola) Anyway we were all sat having a chat and catching up when at 22.30 i had a mild but noticably different pain in my tummy, getting excited but not wanting to get ahead of myself we headed home, i only had 1 other pain before bed. At 1 am I woke for the bathroom and had another pain then another within 20 mins. I was so excited, this was the start of it and I knew it and couldn't sleep at all with excitement and nerves.

I can't remember how the times went exactly now but in the morning we rang Mum and told her to come up as she was a planned second birth partner. Then rang the midwife to let her know things were started and as it was homebirth she poped by to see how far along i was, she checked and i was 3 cm gone so i was officialy going into labour yay. 

I nipped downstairs to get in the bath but when i opened the kitchen door I had a medium sized bleed and i panicked, luckily the midwife was there to calm me but rang labour ward for me to go in. So off we headed then.

On arriving at the labour ward we went in the room, I remember being SO excited to be there. I had decided that I didn't want pain relief except entonox and wanted it all to be as natural as possible, at 7pm that evening I got the urge to start pushing but i couldn't get baby out, at approx 9pm the anaesthetist came in and I was preped for a section by giving me a spinal and taking me to surgery but they decided to try a full episiotomy and rotational forceps (as baby back to back).

Mum stayed in the room waiting and Gaz came with me. He said watching the doctor trying to get baby out was like watching the hulk. Hehe...anyway after lots of pulling (by doc) and pushing (by me) my little baby was eventually born, Daddy was quickly allowed to announce the sex, A GIRL, before she was whisked away and given a brisk rub as she had gone into shock, then we heard that first beautiful cry. 

She was brought over for our first cuddle which was just lovely. 7 days early and weighing 7lb12oz of perfection. 

By Hannah Dohoney
Thank you to Wikipedia links and dictionary.com for definition links. Thank you to Michaela, guest blogger and author. 

Guest Blog: The Birth of Olivia Rose- By Michaela

From the first scan we had of our little monkey we had already got her name picked out (Olivia-Rose) and from her due date if we had gone over our two weeks for induction it would have been Christmas eve which was pretty exciting!! She was planned and conceived pretty quickly so every week was super exciting.

I am a keen x factor watcher and made a joke that it would nice to watch the final with her. So, the x factor final comes December 13th 2009, and I am now 40 weeks, 3 days and 100% desperate to have this baby and have my body back to myself! I am watching the final rubbing my belly, no unusual pains or any indication of anything happening so I went for a good old soak (and sulk) in the bath.

I must have been there about 5 mins before I had my first proper contraction. People never believe you when they say you'll know it's a real one when it happens and I bloody did! I felt like my whole body was vibrating with pain. So after a deep sigh and hoping this was it I struggled out of the bath, feeling like a ten tonne elephant when out of the water. I got dressed, dragged my hospital bag down and went downstairs eagerly awaiting the next one. At this point my hair was sopping wet and I told a rather relaxed Mike what had happened. He said let's sit down and see what happens... Before he could finish the sentence I was well into my second whopping contraction, this took me off the sofa onto my knees laughing my head off. At this point I thought what's all the fuss?! Little did I know.

So we called labour ward and traipsed off down there hitting every possible speed bump on route, which was not pleasant! So at the labour ward I'm put in the delivery suite to be examined and I was about 5cm dilated. And the pain really was kicking in by now. I had been in labour since about 10pm and it was now 1.30am. So now is the time to take advantage of the free pain relief everyone was banging on about. Diamorphine and gas and air. I love you! An injection in my leg which felt like nothing and a bit of gas and air left me feeling very strange. I then vomited all over the midwife.

This was extremely embarrassing!

But I knew with the current situation in hand they were going to see an awful lot more than a bit of sick! So from this point on with copious amounts of gas and air was pretty much a haze.

I vaguely remember sitting in the rocking chair and having to stand their naked while they put me in a different gown because I threw up all over my own nighties. I also remember crying to Mike and apologising for asking for an epidural as I'd sworn blind throughout my whole pregnancy I didn't want one.

The anaesthetist was a small lady with big black dreadlocks and a really gruff voice. After that the next few hours may as well have not happened. Until the pushing and then I became a trooper! I pushed for an hour and a half and was getting nowhere. Literally. So in came what seemed like an army of midwives and doctors, and my legs going up into stirrups- attractive! And then the dreaded ventouse! That was awful. The pressure from that thing was unbelievable. It took about another ten mins with that and a rather nasty episiotomy (which mike nearly passed out from seeing!) and she was here at 5:41pm.

My first born. I was so amazed. I cried and cried. I even made mike cry apparently...nothing to do with his first daughter being born.. Haha yeah right. She was weighed and past to Mike as I requested him to get the first hold. I'm not sure why because I knew it was a crucial bonding moment and they all end up daddy's girls anyway, but I got evens with my second daughter :)

I then held my baby girl for what seemed like forever whilst being stitched up and managing a slice of jalapeno and pepperoni pizza brought in by my Dad who missed Olivia's birth by five minutes.

It really was horrendous. Almost 20 hours of labour and worth every second.

By Michaela

Thank you to Wikipedia links and dictionary.com for definition links. Thank you to Michaela, guest blogger and author.